Editing Mestizo (section)

==Mestizo as a colonial-era category==
{{Main|Casta}}
[[File:De español y mestiza, castiza.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[casta]] painting by Miguel Cabrera. Here he shows a Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish–American Indian) mother, and their Castiza daughter.]]
[[File:Casta Painting by Luis de Mena.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Luis de Mena]], [[Virgin of Guadalupe]] and castas, 1750. The top left grouping is of an ''indio'' and an ''española'', with their Mestizo son. This is the only known casta painting with an ''indio'' man and española woman.]]
[[File:Ignacio María Barreda - Las castas mexicanas.jpg|thumb|upright|Casta painting showing 16 hierarchically arranged, mixed-race groupings. The top left grouping uses ''cholo'' as a synonym for ''mestizo''. Ignacio Maria Barreda, 1777. Real Academia Española de la Lengua, Madrid.]]
In the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonial period]], the Spanish developed a complex set of racial terms and ways to describe difference. Although this has been conceived of as a "system," and often called the ''sistema de castas'' or ''sociedad de castas'', archival research shows that racial labels were not fixed throughout a person's life.<ref name="rappaport"/> Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico, "[[Casta#casta paintings|casta paintings]]," show groupings of racial types in hierarchical order, which has influenced the way that modern scholars have conceived of social difference in Spanish America.<ref name="rappaport">Rappaport, Joanne, ''The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada''. Durham: Duke University Press 2014, pp.208-09.</ref>

During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: Spaniard (''español''), American Indian (''indio''), and African (''negro''). Throughout the territories of the [[Spanish Empire]] in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the ''sistema de castas'' or the ''sociedad de castas'', developed where society was divided based on color, ''calidad'' (status), and other factors.

The main divisions were as follows:
# ''Español'' (fem. española), i.e. [[Spaniards|Spaniard]] – person of Spanish ancestry; a blanket term, subdivided into ''Peninsulares'' and ''Criollos''
#*''[[Peninsulars|Peninsular]]'' – a person of Spanish descent born in Spain who later settled in the Americas;
#* ''[[Criollo people|Criollo]]'' (fem. criolla)&nbsp;– a person of Spanish descent born in the Americas;
# ''[[Castizo]]'' (fem. castiza) – a person with primarily Spanish and some American Indian ancestry born into a mixed family.
# ''Mestizo'' (fem. mestiza) – a person of extended <!-- in time? over generations -->mixed Spanish and American Indian  ancestry;
# ''[[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indio]]'' (fem. India) – a person of pure American Indian ancestry;
# ''[[Pardo]]'' (fem. parda) – a person of mixed Spanish, Amerindian and African ancestry; sometimes a polite term for a black person;
# ''[[Mulatto|Mulato]]'' (fem. mulata) – a person of mixed Spanish and African ancestry;
# ''[[Zambo]]'' – a person of mixed African and American Indian ancestry;
# ''[[Negro]]'' (fem. negra)&nbsp;– a person of [[Atlantic slave trade|African]] descent, primarily former enslaved Africans and their descendants.

In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, the offspring of a castizo/a [mixed Spanish - Mestizo] and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status.<ref>Mörner, ''Race Mixture'', p.58.</ref>

'''Racial labels in a set of eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings by [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]]''':
*'''De Español e India, nace Mestiza'''
*'''De Español y Mestiza, nace Castiza'''
*De Castizo y Española, nace Española
*De Español y Negra, nace Mulata
*De Español y Mulata, nace Morisca
*De Español y Morisca, nace Albino
*De Español y Albina, nace [[Torna atrás]]
*De Español y Torna atrás, "Tente en el ayre"
*De Negro y India, Chino Cambuja
*De Chino Cambujo y India, [[Lobo (racial category)|Loba]]
*De Lobo y India, Albarazado
*'''De Albarazado y Mestiza, Barcino'''
*De Indio y Barcina, Zambaiga
*'''De Castizo y Mestiza, Chamizo'''
*Indios Gentiles (Barbarian [[Chichimeca|Meco Indians]])

In the early colonial period, the children of Spaniards and American Indians were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or the child was raised in the Indigenous world of the mother if he did not.  As early as 1533, [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]] mandated the high court ([[Real Audiencia|Audiencia]]) to take the children of Spanish men and Indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere.<ref name="auto1">Mörner, ''Race Mixture'', p. 55.</ref> This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's Indigenous communities.<ref name="auto1"/>

Mestizos were the first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from the Spanish (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks (''Negros'') and were included in the designation of "vagabonds" (''vagabundos'') in 1543 in Mexico. Although Mestizos were often classified as ''castas'', they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to ''negros'', mulattoes, and other castas. Unlike Blacks and mulattoes, Mestizos had no African ancestors.<ref>Lewis, Laura A. ''Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft, and Caste in Colonial Mexico''. Durham: Duke University Press 2003, p. 84.</ref> Intermarriage between Españoles and Mestizos resulted in offspring designated ''[[Castizo]]s'' ("three-quarters white"), and the marriage of a castizo/a to an Español/a resulted in the restoration of Español/a status to the offspring. Don Alonso O’Crouley observed in Mexico (1774), "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a ''mestizo''; a ''mestizo'' and a Spaniard, a ''castizo''; and a ''castizo'' and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to ''mestizos'' the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."<ref>Sr. Don Pedro Alonso O’Crouley, [https://books.google.com/books?id=y208AAAAIAAJ&q=%20%22If%20the%20mixed-blood%20is%20the%20offspring%20of%20a%20Spaniard%20and%20an%20Indian,%20the%20stigma%22 ''A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain''] (1774), trans. and ed. Sean Galvin. San Francisco: John Howell Books, 1972, 20</ref>&nbsp; O’Crouley states that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. "From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato."<ref>O’Crouley, "A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain’’, p. 20</ref>

The Spanish colonial regime divided groups into two basic legal categories, the Republic of Indians (''República de Indios'') and the Republic of Spaniards (''República de Españoles'') comprised the Spanish (Españoles) and all other non-Indian peoples. Indians were free vassals of the crown, whose commoners paid tribute while Indigenous elites were considered nobles and tribute exempt, as were Mestizos. Indians were nominally protected by the crown, with non-Indians (Mestizos, blacks, and mulattoes) forbidden to live in Indigenous communities. Mestizos and Indians in Mexico habitually held each other in mutual antipathy. This was particularly the case with commoner American Indians against Mestizos, some of whom infiltrated their communities and became part of the ruling elite. Spanish authorities turned a blind eye to the Mestizos' presence, since they collected commoners' tribute for the crown and came to hold offices. They were useful intermediaries for the colonial state between the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians.<ref>Lewis, ''Hall of Mirrors'', pp. 86-91.</ref>

A person's legal racial classification in colonial Spanish America was closely tied to social status, wealth, culture, and language use. Wealthy people paid to change or obscure their actual ancestry. Many Indigenous people left their traditional villages and sought to be counted as Mestizos to avoid tribute payments to the Spanish.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Peter N. Stearns |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MziRd4ddZz4C&q=mestizo+cuba&pg=RA1-PA401 |title=Encyclopedia of World History:Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged |author2=William L. Langer |work= |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books |year=2001 |name-list-style=amp}}</ref> Many Indigenous people, and sometimes those with partial African descent, were classified as Mestizo if they spoke Spanish and lived as Mestizos.

In colonial [[Venezuela]], {{lang|es|[[pardo]]}} was more commonly used instead of {{lang|es|mestizo}}. {{lang|es|Pardo}} means being mixed without specifying which mixture;<ref name="Ethnic Groups in Venezuela">{{cite web |url=http://countrystudies.us/venezuela/17.htm |title=Venezuela – ETHNIC GROUPS |website=Countrystudies.us |access-date=29 March 2015}}</ref> it was used to describe anyone born in the Americas whose ancestry was a mixture of European, Native American, and African.<ref name="LAS CASTAS EN LA SOCIEDAD COLONIAL VENEZOLANA">{{cite web |url=http://www.eldesafiodelahistoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=193:silvio-di-bernardo&catid=94:publicate&Itemid=129 |title=El Desafío de la Historia |website=Eldesafiodelahistoria.com |access-date=15 October 2017 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304194015/http://www.eldesafiodelahistoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=193:silvio-di-bernardo&catid=94:publicate&Itemid=129 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

When the [[First Mexican Republic]] was established in 1824, legal racial categories ceased to exist. The production of [[casta]] paintings in [[New Spain]] ceased at the same juncture, after almost a century as a genre.

Because the term had taken on a myriad of meanings, the designation "Mestizo" was actively removed from census counts in Mexico and is no longer in official nor governmental use.<ref name="Herbst-p.144"/>